The men's indoor track and field team continued its recent surge at the Open New England Championships at Boston University this weekend, posting several stellar performances, including two school records and many national caliber marks. Overall, the Jumbos combined for a 15th place finish among the region's Div. I, II and III schools.
Junior Jeff Marvel began the meet on a high note for the Jumbos, breaking his own 800-meter record of 1:52.12 set last year with a time of 1:51.43, good for fifth nationally this season. With just one weekend remaining to qualify for the Div. III NCAA Championships, Marvel's personal-best time is likely to be good enough to qualify in the 800-meter at the national level indoors for a second year.
"It's hard not to be happy with a personal best and national qualifier, so in that respect it was a very good day," Marvel said. "[The race] went out kind of slow … I was trying to put myself in good position and being in the top two [in my heat] to get an automatic qualifier for Saturday, and I was really pleased when I finished and saw 1:51 on the clock, but I was really going more for place than time."
The time also qualified Marvel for the finals on Saturday, where he finished fifth with another solid time of 1:51.7.
A second school record was set in the last event on Saturday, the 4x400-meter relay. The foursome of junior Vinnie Lee, freshman Francis Goins, senior Ben Crastnopol and sophomore Graham Beutler combined for a time of 3:17.36.
"All season we've known that we had the talent and the right group of guys to run some fast races, and it was a big relief and really rewarding to able to run with it those guys because of all the workouts we put in this year," Lee said. "Everyone felt really good, but there are definitely a few more tenths of a second that we can get out of us."
The team is currently tied for 10th nationally, and the foursome will try to pare down its time next weekend to secure an NCAA bid.
Senior tri-captain Connor Rose also added a national qualifier in the mile on Saturday, running a 4:08.65. The personal record for Rose — who is also an Assistant Sports Editor for the Daily — was good for ninth in the meet and seventh nationally in Div. III. The mark also ranks as the second-fastest in Tufts history, just over a second off the nearly forty year old school record of 4:07.24.
The Jumbos also notched impressive finishes in the jumps. With a triple jump of 47-5 3/4, junior GbolaAjayi added another personal best and national-caliber mark on Saturday, placing him 11th in the country. In the vault, junior Brad Nakanishi cleared 15-7 to earn fifth and made solid attempts at the 16-1 bar, the current school-record height.
Senior Jeff Prescott added another impressive performance for the Jumbos. On Friday, Prescott ran a personal best of 2:31.84 in the preliminaries of the 1,000-meter run, qualifying for the finals with the fifth-best time. On Saturday, Prescott returned to the track and recorded his second personal record of the weekend, clocking 2:30.68 and earning sixth place.
"It was a very good weekend," Marvel said. "We had strong performances all around, and it looks like we're getting in shape at the right time and getting ready for nationals."
The squad will travel to New York City to compete at the ECAC Championships at the Armory this Friday and Saturday. With two weeks left in the indoor season, the Jumbos will look for strong final marks to cap off their seasons and to solidify spots at the National Championships on March 9-10.
"We've been talking all season about leaving it all on the table," Lee said. "We finally have lots of great athletes who have run lots of great workouts, so there's no looking forward to next year; we want to run great now."
